CALVINISM IN FRANCE
France, too, at that time, was all aglow with the free,
bounding, restless spirit of Calvinism. "In France the Calvinists were called
Huguenots. The character of the Huguenots the world knows. Their moral purity and heroism,
whether persecuted at home or exiled abroad, has been the wonder of both friend and
foe."1 "Their history," says the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
"is a standing marvel, illustrating the abiding power of strong religious conviction.
The account of their endurance is amongst the most remarkable and heroic records of
religious history." The Huguenots made up the industrious artisan class of France and
to be "honest as a Huguenot" became a proverb, denoting the highest degree of
integrity.
On St. Bartholomew's Day, Sunday, August
24, 1572, a great many Protestants were treacherously murdered in Paris, and for days
thereafter the shocking scenes were repeated in different parts of France. The total
number of those who lost their lives in the St. Bartholomew massacre has been variously
estimated at from 10,000 to 50,000. Schaff estimates it at 30,000. These furious
persecutions caused hundreds of thousands of the French Protestants to flee to Holland,
Germany, England, and America. The loss to France was irreparable. Macaulay the English
historian writes as follows of those who settled in England: "The humblest of the
refugees were intellectually and morally above the average of the common people of any
kingdom in Europe." The great historian Lecky, who himself was a cold-blooded
rationalist, wrote: "The destruction of the Huguenots by the Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes was the destruction of the most solid, the most modest, the most virtuous, the
most generally enlightened element in the French nation, and it prepared the way for the
inevitable degradation of the national character, and the last serious bulwark was removed
that might have broken the force of that torrent of skepticism and vice which, a century
later, laid prostrate, in merited ruin, both the altar and the throne."2
"If you have read their
history," says Warburton, "you must know how cruel and unjust were the
persecutions instigated against them. The best blood of France deluged the battlefield,
the brightest genius of France was suffered to lie neglected and starving in prison, and
the noblest characters which France ever possessed were hunted like wild beasts of the
forest, and slain with as little pity." And again, "In every respect they stood
immeasurably superior to all the rest of their fellow-countrymen. The strict sobriety of
their lives, the purity of their moral actions, their industrious habits, and their entire
separation from the foul sensuality which corrupted the whole of the national life of
France at this period, were always effectual means of betraying the principles which they
held, and were so regarded by their enemies."3
The debauchery of the kings had descended
through the aristocracy to the common people; religion had become a mass of corruption,
consistent only with its cruelty; the monasteries had become breeding places of iniquity;
celibacy had proved to be a foul fountain of unchastity and uncleanness; immorality,
licentiousness, despotism and extortion in State and Church were indescribable; the
forgiveness of sins could be purchased for money, and a shameful traffic in indulgences
was carried on under the pope's sanction; some of the popes were monsters of iniquity;
ignorance was appalling; education was confined to the clergy and the nobles; many even of
the priests were unable to read or write; and society in general had fallen to pieces.
This is a one-sided, but not an
exaggerated, description. It is true as far as it goes, and needs only to be supplemented
by the brighter side, which was that many honest Roman Catholics were earnestly working
for reform from within the Church. The Church, however, was in an irreformable condition.
Any change, if it was to come at all, had to come from without. Either there would be no
reformation or it would be in opposition to Rome.
But gradually Protestant ideas were
filtering into France from Germany. Calvin began his work in Paris and was soon recognized
as one of the leaders of the new movement in France. His zeal aroused the opposition of
Church authorities and it became necessary for him to flee for his life. And although
Calvin never returned to France after his settlement in Geneva, he remained the leader of
the French Reformation and was consulted at every step. He gave the Huguenots their creed
and form of government. Throughout the following period it was, according to the unanimous
testimony of history, the system of faith which we call Calvinism that inspired the French
Protestants in their struggle with the papacy and its royal supporters.
What the Puritan was in England, the
Covenanter was in Scotland, and the Huguenot was in France. That Calvinism developed the
same type of men in each of these several countries is a most remarkable proof of its
power in the formation of character.
So rapidly did Calvinism spread throughout
France that Fisher in his History of the Reformation tells us that in 1561 the Calvinists
numbered one-fourth of the entire population. McFetridge places the number even higher.
"In less than half a century," says he, "this so-called harsh system of
belief had penetrated every part of the land, and had gained to its standards almost
one-half of the population and almost every great mind in the nation. So numerous and
powerful had its adherents become that for a time it appeared as if the entire nation
would be swept over to their views."4 Smiles, in his "Huguenots in
France," writes: "It is curious to speculate on the influence which the
religion of Calvin, himself a Frenchman, might have exercised on the history of France, as
well as on the individual character of the Frenchman, had the balance of forces carried
the nation bodily over to Protestantism, as was very nearly the case, toward the end of
the sixteenth century," (p. 100). Certainly the history of the nation would have been
very different from that which it has been.
Footnotes:
1Smith, The Creed of
Presbyterians, p. 83.
2Eng. Hist. Eighteenth Century, I., pp. 264, 265.
3Calvinism, pp. 84, 92.
4Calvinism in History, p. 144
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